The Tame Lombax
by TheAceLombax
Summary: Ratchet and Talwyn enjoy a nice night of romance, food, bad made-for-TV-movies and sex.


"Where's our little friend?"

"Qwark?"

Talwyn's head reared back and her eyes narrowed, Ratchet's casual foolishness always managed to surprise her. "Qwark looks little to you? Really?"

"Big muscles." He replied with a sheepish grin. "Little brain."

His lover slouched against the sofa and folded her arms, the softness of her sigh betraying her amusement. "_Clank_." She elaborated.

"Nah." Shrugged Ratchet, scooting a little closer beside her. "Just you and me tonight, apparently he got a better offer?"

"A better offer? From who?"

"Big Al." He grunted. "Apparently he's writing a book on quantum theorem or transcendental biochemistry in relation to _blahblahblah_, I dunno."

Talwyn's soft lips parted in grief. "God," she whispered, "we've been ditched! This is awful."

"Terrible." Ratchet agreed.

"Look at me!" She cried, her face dropping in a ridiculous mask of sorrow. "I'm completely inconsolable!"

"Heartbroken." He squeaked, sniffing back tears.

She threw her hands up in the air and looked to the Heavens, seeming to ask the Gods for some advice on so calamitous an occurrence. "Stood up by a robot." Talwyn lamented. "Yep, I'm _officially _ a loser. I know you didn't have a social life to screw up, so this probably doesn't bother you much, but how could he do this to me? I'm witty, charming, know my way around a tasteless limerick, and unlike you, dear Lombax, am not poised to give us both food poisoning."

Ratchet gave her a scowl and flared his nostrils wide, taking in the aroma of the authentic Veldin cuisine he had prepared them. "Oh, ye of little faith!" He scolded.

"Hey," she fired back, "I've got faith to spare. I have faith that the sky is blue. I've got faith that the Sun'll rise again tomorrow morning. I've got faith that, right now, Cronk and Zephyr are yelling at God to turn down all that damn harp-playing. But your cooking? Gotta' say, I'm not too confident."

"I'll have you know that Sand-Frog Honey-Glazed Ribs are a real delicacy back home!"

"And there was me thinking that all you did was eat rocks and ritually sacrifice anyone who knew math." Jested Talwyn, smiling to herself and running a smooth finger down the soft fur of his neck.

It was only with a supreme effort of will that Ratchet didn't shudder with glee. They were alone, Clank had gladly vacated their Metropolis apartment and would be up all night talking shop with Big Al. It was just him and Talwyn, treading around the snark, jousting with their barbed words and full of the blushing, apple-cheeked uncertainty that stopped their eyes from meeting for more than two seconds and filled their bellies with writhing vipers. On that night, he was the dashing boyfriend preparing them both a delicious meal. He was not a mechanic or a warrior or a hero, just a normal guy with a normal life and devilish good looks.

He had dressed for the part, as he always did, making sure his fur glimmered just the right shade of yellow and being sure to show off his lithe frame in a shirt he knew was too tight and trousers that hung a little too low.

Talwyn herself was not above such theatrics. The necessities of her job may have made her seem gruff and unapproachable, and for the most part that would be an accurate appraisal of her character. Yet beneath the curt manners and unbending will of a professional soldier was a woman with tastes and appetites, and she enjoyed dressing up for dinner. Her skin was no longer dulled and dirtied by the filth of battle, but glowed and beamed with all the softness of a peach resting in a bed of feathers. Dark hair flowed freely around her strong shoulders and that tough, muscular frame was shrewdly hidden behind a white shirt that ended just above her knees, portions of it left teasingly unbuttoned.

"Just make it through dinner." He told himself, biting his lip and holding back a whimper. "Play it cool, R-man, just keep calm and _R-MAN?! Oh, God, I'm calling myself R-MAN? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? Damn, she's looking at you! Smile! For the love of God, smile!_" He grinned. "_COY!_ _COY SMILE! AND DROP THOSE EYELIDS! SMOULDER A LITTLE, MAN!_"

"Ratchet, are you okay?"

"Babe, when I'm with you, I'm _perfect_."

"Your eyelid's twitching." She frowned.

"No, no, no, that's just how I blink." He chuckled.

"Nope, there was some definite twitchage going on. Any reason why that might be?" He tried to say something, but her finger kept running down his neck, up and down and up and down. Words and sounds became nothing but mewls and growls, his sweet talk the bleating of a frightened barnyard animal. "_Hmm_," she purred, "just one touch and you're already hyperventilating. Maybe you need to go to bed, lie down for a while?"

In the kitchen, the timer gave a welcome chime and Ratchet jumped to his feet, his tail thrashing around like a whirling mace and all manner of spluttered excuses escaping his lifeless, cracking lips. He slid on a pink oven glove and removed the tray of smoking, sweet smelling ribs. By some miracle, they had not been burned and glistened with the sticky, black dressing that gave them a little extra kick. Upon the side of each serving he laid a few glistening leaves of lettuce and a handful of baby tomatoes. Cooking was an alien concept to him, but vegetables he could do, vegetables were the gattling gun of the culinary world, just point and click. Or, in his case, wash, position and pray a slug didn't lay any eggs on them.

With plates in hand, he gingerly made his way to the small, circular table they had erected in the living room of their modest apartment, setting down the plates, laying a knife and fork besides each one and sitting opposite his girlfriend, the smell of good food doing much to quiet that other, more terrible hunger.

Despite her scepticism, as soon as Talwyn's lips parted and her teeth tore flesh from bone, her sharp tail zipped up and wagged happily. Veldin, it seemed, was good for more than just rocks and kooky blood rituals.

"This," she decided, "is amazing."

"Thanks." He smiled, crushing a tomato between his fangs. "I guess the old stomping grounds were good for something after all, huh?"

Talwyn's eyes, as light and pale as a distant star, dropped and her voice grew suddenly solemn, perhaps even a little sad. "Do you ever miss it?" She asked. "Veldin, I mean?"

"Why would I?"

"It's where it all began." Talwyn explained quietly. "You start somewhere, you grow, you change, you leave, and before you know it you're living in an apartment in Metropolis with a robot and a...well, whatever the Hell I am. So much shifts until you can't remember who you were before. Do you ever wish that you could just go back, and have things stay the same?"

"Nah," he told her softly, "'cause that's not living, is it? It's just, just..." His brow furrowed and his hand waved, but he couldn't find the right word.

"Existing." She offered.

"Yeah. You're just existing, nothing else. Sometimes you just have to take a punt, y'know? All this is way too short to just _settle_."

"It is short." Talwyn agreed. "It really, really is."

_She still misses them,_ he realised, thinking suddenly of two old and loyal friends trussed up and engulfed in flames, two friends he let die, two friends she lost and could never replace. His hand, warm and calm, reached out and enclosed hers, and when he spoke it was not in that quivering voice that justified his eye-twitching, or that jaunty chirp which jested about the size of Qwark's brain, it was the low and intimate tone reserved for her and her alone. "It's short." He admitted. "But so what? It's exciting. You're born and right there, at your fingertips, you've got the whole world to see and worlds besides. The world turns, and yeah, it knocks you down every once in a while, but you know what we do then? We _stand_. We get up, dust ourselves off and _stand_. We remember the good times before the fall, so the next time we get flattened it doesn't hurt as much."

Talwyn did not cry, she had shed enough tears for her friends and had no more to spare. Perhaps she was not even that sad, just contemptuous of their affluence when others she loved had been so poorly treated. Whatever lay behind those eyes he could not guess at, but he was certainly relieved when the faraway, ghostly stare departed and returned his lover to him. "What," she queried, "did I ever do to deserve you?"

"You killed a _lot_ of people in a past life."

"And I'd kill 'em all again."

When they had finished dinner and washed up, the two of them snuggled in front of the huge television that nearly reached the roof. Flicking through channel after channel of auctioneering, infomercials and interior design reality shows, they eventually found something appealingly trashy. It was a Made-For-TV movie, hastily thrown together and based around the terrible crimes of Vendra Prog and her defeat at Ratchet's hands. In their rendition of the story, the dreaded space witch had been imagined as a frumpy and shrill woman, played with the kind of dead-eyed monotone of an actress realising far too late that her career was dead in the water. As for Ratchet, he was both amused and appalled to find that his role had been taken by a monkey with prosthetic ears. Every so often the camera would inexplicably cut away, to avoid showing the poor beast scratching himself or attempting to...mount the cocker spaniel with the tin-foil hat.

"So," grumbled Talwyn, "the dog was Clank? I'm pretty sure he doesn't lick himself that much."

"And I don't recall ever rubbing his head and looking for parasites." Ratchet seethed, the image of a diapered, fake-eared Lombaxpanzee doing little to endear him to the production. "Awful!" He spat, turning off the television and sighing. "I find ice cream always washes away the taste of bad acting, up for some desert?"

"I think so." She smiled, taking his hand.

Before he could even articulate a gasp, she had risen to her feet, lifted him to his and pulled him across the room and towards the table. With a merry yelp, she sat upon the surface and drew him between her legs, causing something between his to judder and jolt. Her face, with its sharp, elven features and horribly, wonderfully frank eyes drew closer to his. There was a warmth to her, a glow that reminded Ratchet of sweet pastry baking in an oven, or the peaceful drowsiness after a hot bath. There was something about her that, in those moments, made him close his eyes and give in.

Slowly, carefully, their tongues met in the slick, warm dance of lovers. He grunted and gasped, she giggled and groaned, his hands plundered every inch of that hard body which lay behind her shirt, and her palms ran gently across his belly and began to remove his garments. First, he heard a thrilling _pop_ and realised that his trousers had been unbuttoned and slide around his ankles. Something between his legs, some wild beast, thrashed with impatient lust against the soft of her thighs. Then, their kiss broke as the shirt was pulled past his chin, over his arms and left as nothing more than a crumpled heap on the floor.

His fingers made for the buttons of her shirt but were stopped dead by the tail coiling tightly around his wrists.

"No." She whispered, flicking her tongue into his mouth and recoiling it just as quickly. "Not now. Not yet."

Talwyn's face detached itself, rose and lit up in a smirk of such lust and promised that he shivered to behold it. The tail unwrapped itself from his wrists, zoomed beneath the table and pulled out a red length of cloth he realised was her bandanna.

Seconds later, he cried out in surprise as his whole body was turned around and his face pressed into the cool surface of the table. His hands were pulled behind his back and, with an unmistakeable rush of jubilation, he felt the red cloth tie his wrists together. Her kisses, he knew, were just the opening round of a very long game, one they often played with such vigour that he never minded losing.

Ratchet found himself flung roughly to the floor, forced to his knees and able to do nothing but watch, powerlessly, as the woman he loved flaunted all the beauty he could not touch.

Looking down at him, and his bubbling, nodding rod, Talwyn did what Ratchet had wanted her to do since first seeing her body hidden behind so little white cloth. Her hands found the edge of her long white shirt and she began to pull up, wiggling free of her single item of clothing until she was as naked as the Lombax at her feet.

Ratchet stared, his mouth dropped, and he cursed. Her neck led down to a flat belly, buttoned with a small black oval and glistening with nervous sweat. Her breasts were two delectable pears still ripening on the branch. And between her legs was a little crease, decorated with a shaven length of dark hair. She was presenting herself, showing him what he could have, what he could kiss and grope and enjoy.

With a mad surge of joy, he saw that she _knew_ how beautiful she was, knew that he wanted her, and knew precisely what was going to happen. Her hand rested on her hip and she gave a slight tilt of her head, as though wondering how he was able to resist leaping upon her.

A hand laid itself upon a firm breast and teasingly made its way down her stomach before resting on the patch of hair between her legs.

"You can have me." She said, stooping down and putting a finger beneath his chin. "But first I want a sign."

"A sign? Of what?"

"A sign that I can trust you." Talwyn explained, licking her lips. "A sign that you're loyal. There's just one thing you have to do before we can go to bed, one tiny little thing you have to do before you and I can be together."

"Anything." He croaked, nearly salivating.

She smiled, rose to her full height and lifted up her leg, stretching out a soft, flawless foot and placing it just in front of Ratchet's face.

"Just kiss my feet." She demanded.

"_What?_"

"Bow down to me and kiss my feet." Talwyn repeated, folding her arms beneath her breasts.

Ratchet hadn't been sure how long his proud objections would hold against that firm belly, svelte legs and soft lips, but he imagined it would have been longer. In no time at all, he had rose to his knees, and as he rose, his head drooped and his body bent, bowing to her.

"_Yes!_" He heard her exclaim, triumphant and euphoric.

Raising his head, he stared at the foot she offered him, shuddering at the softness of her skin, and planted his lips on it.

"Again." She commanded him, putting her hands on her hips.

He kissed her foot again, and then again, and another time still.

"Now," She told him, "I want you to lick it."

He growled, he scowled, but obeyed. His tongue shot out and ran itself over her foot, between her toes, upon her sole, along her nails. He licked until she squealed with pleasure, he licked until he could feel her shake with joy, he licked until she told him to suck.

Before he could refuse, delicate toes were forced into his mouth and Ratchet tasted them all, closing his eyes and telling himself that his humiliation would soon be over. Not realising that as soon as he finished with one foot, she would simply hold out the other.

When he had finished and been suitably demeaned, he simply knelt before her, unable to look up, feeling beaten and broken and without a shred of dignity to cling onto.

Talwyn stood there, and glared down at him, a smirk upon her lips, and an incessant tapping from the foot Ratchet had slathered with kisses. He saw her legs walk away, veer behind him, and heard her pick something up from beneath the table.

With a victorious laugh, Talwyn sat on his back and grabbed a clump of golden hair, pulling his head backwards and chuckling as he grunted and squirmed with discomfort.

"You need a collar." She decided, dangling the chain and leather loop before his face and busily working about his neck until he had been manacled like a wild beast.

Nude, collared, bound and chained, Ratchet found himself led like a cow at market. She first brought him to his feet and then slung him back upon the table, reaching beneath it and pulling out two final items, a length of coarse rope and an ugly brown muzzle.

Save for his heart, his whole body went numb as she took the length of rope and began binding him tightly to the table, seeming to dance with the cords as she slung them over and under him and worked about the knots with her long fingers until he was fixed to the flat, smooth surface.

Then she picked up the muzzle.

As she fasted the brown leather contraption around his mouth, he could see all of her, _smell_ her, the legs he wanted to feel crush him again, the breasts he wanted to nuzzle, the belly he wanted to lick, and there he was tied up. So why were the ropes and chain making him _more_ excited? It was something he had never been able to account for.

As he laid there, he felt the muscle between his legs standing up straight, occasionally quivering and feeling close to exploding. A horse was behind that pole of muscle, a galloping beast chomping at the bit and aching to be freed, a single look at Talwyn told Ratchet that she was about to do just that.

Talwyn stooped by his lap, laid a warm hand on his belly and bent towards the object of his strife. Her full lips opened and a white wad of spit fell to the tip, making him shiver. Her tongue, long and satiny, stretched forth, running up it, circling around and lunging, until her whole mouth was around it - sucking and gnawing and licking.

Ratchet heard himself cry from behind the muzzle, wanting to be released, wanting to be set free and let loose, wanting the galloping horse to break through the gates and run for the finish.

Releasing him, she gave Ratchet a coy flutter of her eyelashes and scaled the table, sitting upon his chest and almost glowing with warmth from the door she needed his key to open. Her arms folded and she gazed down at her boyfriend there, trussed and chained and silenced. There was satisfaction in her eyes and victory in the smirking bark of laughter that escaped her throat.

The rod of muscle, pounding and dancing, found itself gently guided between her legs and into something tight and soft, something that chilled and warmed and thrilled and scared all at once. She had humiliated the Lombax, forced him to kneel before her, forced him to lick her feet, she had tied him up and chained him down, she had put a collar about his neck and a muzzle over his mouth - now she aimed to tame him.

Slowly, she began to bounce upon the stiffened rod, tearing her lover between gasping and laughing. His toes curled, his knees knocked and his tail thrashed as she lowered and raised her body, pumping him, tightening her hand around his neck, sighing, groaning, smirking, laughing and licking her lips.

The beast between his legs was being ridden to exhaustion. Talwyn neither needed a saddle not stirrups, only her body, and with every thrust and jump she drove that heaving creature to the edge of a great cliff.

On and on she rode, Ratchet's every cry met with a demand that he move harder and faster, even as the cliff approached and the dropped loomed.

His legs writhed and his fangs gnashed, but still he drove the beast.

His sweat flew and his spittle exploded, but still she led him to the drop.

His heart stretched and his eyes popped, but she simply screamed for more and more and -

"No!"

And more.

"NO!"

And more.

"GOD!"

And more!

"Talwyn!"

Until finally...

"_NOOooOOurGHHaRggahhh..._"

The horse and his rider leaped off that cliff, plunged into darkness and had only their flesh to land on until, at last, they were silenced, panting and tired and spent, leaning on one another and staring up at the rock face, already planning their next big jump.


End file.
